Friday, March 28, 2008

Over the years I have found that most comic strip readers think syndicated cartoonists were born--if not already married and had kids--around the time the record industry switched from 78 rpm singles to that fancy LP technology.

Hence, I can confidently bet that some people looking at the first panel of today's Sally Forth are thinking, "'Vampire Monkeys'?!? That's just the kind of band name I'd expect from some no doubt 65-year-old cartoonist who when he's not playing golf is wondering why PBS still gets funding!"

Could it be?Yes, it could!Chigurh’s coming, neighborhoodMaybe tonightMaybe tonight….

Also from Comics Curmudgeon--in regards to Josh's link to my blog post email exchange with Pearls Before Swine's Stephan Pastis--comes one of the best backhanded compliments I have ever received, courtesy of a man/woman named "Rhymes with Puck":

After reading the blog post, I would say that my respect for Ces Marciuliano - before this post known to me as only ‘whoever the jack-off is who writes Sally Forth’ - has gone up infinitely, since of course I had no respect for him until now.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

For me this song will always say "That spring break when I was eight-years-old and my family operated a booth at an adult entertainment convention in Daytona, Florida selling pornographic T-shirts and penis cozies while I wandered the center bored out of my mind, collecting free Playboy cocktail shakers and copies of Oui before I was screamed at by actor Sam Elliott for taking too many mood rings." Enjoy.

Monday, March 10, 2008

I've decided to bring my book proposal online (complete with daily updates) in the hopes of generating interest and feedback as I move towards publication or rejection. If you have a moment, please check it out here.

Friday, March 7, 2008

After 25 years, countless questions,an interminable period of unemployment, a part-time job in a toy store and that week he danced under the name "Cinnamon Dandy," Ted Forth's actual profession will be revealed tomorrow, Saturday March 8th, in Sally Forth.

Gather the kids, get the camera, try to pretend to give a damn and consider for one last time if any of the following is Ted's true long-standing career:

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Several readers have written to me asking why the Sally Forth strip for Tuesday, March 4 appeared yet again online for Wednesday, March 5.

First, thank you for paying enough attention to note that I normally do write a different strip each day. Second, the repeat appears to be a Web glitch. I am told that the print editions ran the correct version (although I have to take that on faith since Sally Forth currently does not run in Manhattan).

Until I can retrieve a scan of the missing strip in question, please enjoy the following transcript for yesterday's actual Sally Forth. Consider it a radio play, minus the Ovaltine sponsorship...and probably any audible laughs.

Wednesday1. Scene: Forth Study, Evening. Ted sits at the family computer, typing away. Sally stands behind him, leaning down to wrap her arms around Ted’s shoulders as she kisses him on the cheek with closed eyes. Ted looks at the monitor with #2. S: What are you working on?T: Crafting a grabber of an opening sentence for this cover letter.

2. Cut to close-up of Sally, looking over Ted’s shoulder as she reads what he wrote on the monitor. Sally #3. Ted #3a. S: “Ever since I was a kid I’ve dreamt of a position in farm equipment sales and services.”

3. Sally and Ted look at each other. Both #3S: That’s not true, is it? T: Actually, I’m afraid of threshers.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Following today's revelation today that the critically-acclaimed memoir Love and Consequences by Margaret B. Jones is in fact a complete fabrication--which comes a scant week after it was revealed the best-selling Holocaust memoir Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years is a fake and two years after A Million Little Pieces author James Frey had deceived a nation and, even more egregiously, Oprah--I feel I must finally come clean to all my blog and Sally Forth readers.

My name is not "Francesco Marciuliano." In fact, there never was a "Francesco Marciuliano." And, most importantly, there has never been a strip called Sally Forth.

I am actually Lou Stanton, a building contractor in North Bend, Washington who simply wanted to achieve some recognition and a satisfactory level of renown by pretending to be a cartoonist with an unpronounceable surname. Or I'm Henry Ribar, a strategic sourcing manager in La Jolla, California with a lovely wife, two adorable kids and a cute-as-a-button Yorkshire Terrier. Or I'm Miss Anna Mae Lumpkin, clinical diabetes researcher in the Woodhall Mountains of Mississippi. It doesn't matter, really, since like I said I don't exist.

My story started to unravel last Thursday when a person kept calling me "Francesco Marciuliano" straight to my face for a full 45 minutes and I had no idea they were talking to me. They then reached out to shake me into awareness, only to discover that I am imaginary and they were throttling a Hear Music display at Starbucks (which would be a nice place to enjoy coffee if only there ever were such a place).

Further investigation revealed that while a "Francesco Marciuliano" had graduated from Duke University in the late 80's, he did so at age 21 and since I am age 40, we clearly could not be the same person (this leading to the possibility of identity fraud, which will easily be dismissed when it is learned I just created the phrase "Duke University"). I should also note that any and all pictures of me on the Internet ("Internet"--where do I come up with these words?) are complete fabrications and there is only one extant photograph of the real me, which I used as my "author photo" when I wrote Gravity's Rainbow and V. (also a lie, since neither book--or any book, for that matter--has ever existed...just like the previously mentioned but unreal photograph and supposed "me").

As for Sally Forth, a cursory search Google and Wikipedia (two funny names I just made up) reveals that while there was indeed a comic strip by that name it revolved around an oft-nude action adventure character, was targeted to a male military readership and was discontinued back in 1974 (or so I just wrote, since reality is but a shared illusion and as long as I can get a handful of people to believe such a strip existed then we can say it did). Had I known this I would have certainly named my imaginary comic something else to avoid confusion, returning to my original fake idea of a strip called Bring Home the Bacon, focusing on the life of a wife and mother who works full-time work at an abattoir. I apologize to all my readers and fans who made the strip a daily part of their lives for the past 26 years only now to realize they had never done such.

In response to my disclosure about the true nature of Sally Forth, I'm pretending my fictitious syndicate King Features released the following made-up statement:

"We have no idea what he is talking about. Ignore him. He clearly is a sick, sick man...Wait, if the syndicate doesn't exist then I am clearly writing this false statement, so why on earth would I call myself 'sick'? Couldn't I say that I'm 'charming' or at least 'not prone to warts'? How about 'doesn't stink to high heaven'? That would have certainly been better than 'sick.' Hmm...I wonder if I'm having some sort of mental breakdown right about now. La dee da, la da da..."

Once again. I deeply regret my deception and apologize to all those who think they are reading this nonexistent blog post right now, since in addition to both me and the comic being complete fabrications, so is the blog, Blogger and your computer. Everything you have perceived is in fact an all-encompassing hallucination due to crippling Lewy body dementia, In fact, you are currently running naked and screaming through the Delta hub at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, trying to outrun a Cinnabon. Please stop, take several deep, cleansing breaths and let the nice men with the billy clubs take you to a place of rest and prolonged examination.

FBI Profile

Pens the comic strips Sally Forth and Medium Large. Writes for The Onion News Network. Serves as head writer for the PBS series SeeMore's Playhouse (for which his script won two regional Emmys). Was afraid of the color yellow until about age nine. Tans a little too well to be trusted by security.

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Blog Mission Statement

A simple grilled cheese sandwich. Something that can be procured anywhere at any time. Nothing too exciting, right?

But what if I put a little butter on the bread before I grilled that sandwich? That would add a little extra zing, right? And what if instead of using plain old American cheese I opted for something a tad more exotic, like Camembert, Stilton or Roquefort? Now we're talking, right?

And what if instead of using bread for my grilled cheese sandwich I used two large blocks of pure platinum? And what if instead of eating the platinum I sold it and then used that small fortune as venture capital for a Beijing-based conglomerate that could take advantage of Chinese local business incentives, cheap labor, lax environmental laws and surging global interest in the fastest-growing economy in the world, thereby ensuring returns in the billions of dollars even in the face of a collapsing U.S. dollar and a massive industrial shift from the technical to service business sector? Wouldn't that be nice?

That's exactly what Francesco Explains It All is. In an endless buffet of indistinguishable tastes, it's the grilled platinum Stilton cheese sandwich that could forever destabilize geoeconomics. Care for a bite?